A screaming stranger

Today's lesson was about action. How do our characters take action in a situation. It could be a simple situation or a or an intense conflict, but they take action. Brandon Sanderson called it being proactive, when I listened to his lectures on writing science fiction and fantasy. Basically, they happen to things. Or perhaps they choose not to, but regardless they choose.

I think I'm doing ok on this one in the book, but I could probably make it more purposeful. Something to keep in mind for revision.

The writing prompt

This one is simple enough. My character is in coffee shop when someone starts screaming at him. Amusingly, one of the options was Darth Vader. I had several thoughts on how that could have turned out. Perhaps Vader would have just left them hanging in the air and ignored them. Probably not though. After some consideration, I picked an FBI agent. 10 minutes, then I had to stop. I did clean up the typos afterwards.

The Screaming Stranger

Special Agent Jake Smith of the FBI stared blearily up at the menu of the coffee shop. He had a special hate for early mornings, which, unfortunately, the Bureau seemed to love. What should he order? There were so many combinations to choose from, and he just didn’t have the energy for this. Maybe he should have just gone to Dunkin’ Donuts instead.

Suddenly, a man behind him irritably said, “Are you going to order something or just stand there? Some of us have somewhere to be!”

Jake sighed and looked up at the ceiling. It was too early to have an argument over something meaningless like this. “Go ahead of me. I’m still not sure what I want.”

Instead of accepting this, the man walked in front of Jake, turned to stare at him, and looked even angrier. “What’s your problem?! Do you think you are better than me or something? Why the ridiculous sigh at me?”

Jake paused in shock, then narrowed his eyes. “Look, I’m tired and really not interested in this. I just want some coffee, so this morning sucks less.”

The man looked even more wound up and raised his voice. “So you can treat people badly just because you’re tired?” He started to say more when Jake stepped closer and got into his space.

“I really don’t care what your problem is with me. If you want to do this, you can. But I don’t care what kind of scene you make or what you do. Order your food and get on with your day,” Jake said. “Besides,” he said with a slight smile, “People have places to be this morning, and you are holding them all up.”